I love the idea for the map, I would certainly want to play on it. I agree with your own later idea to increase the number of fertile territories, allowing for an opponent to build up a base of operations before charging forward. Because of the decay, not allowing people to have a decent starting amount of territory just wouldn't be fair and would leave too much up to luck.

Like I promised, here is a small example of the graphics of my next update.

notes:
---that is taken from what will become the large version. small will be shrunk a bit.
---The Fertile land will have a bunch of houses and villages and manmade stuff, along with some water and plants and nature effects. the desert will be mostly empty. The Oases will be about the same as the fertile land, except there won't be any manmade structures. just nature.
---thats the bottom right corner of the map.
---I haven't drawn in most of the borders yet.
---that image isn't finished. i need to do some touchups in a few places (fix the yellow roofs, make the rocks more visible, etc.)

gameplays all in the desert. The Fertile land doesn't matter very much, its just the starting place for your race to the Grand Oasis.

I'm getting all of the fertile land out of the way now, because its pretty easy and not that big of a deal where the countries go. If any of the borders do need to be changed, it will be very easy to do. I can just re-draw them wherever (which is why there aren't any names on the map yet. Names will be added once the terrain is finished, because I won't know where to put them until the villages and plants and water are all painted in.)

Oh, and about the number of countries:
I finished drawing in the borders for the fertile area on the right side of the map. It is about equal in size to the fertile area on the image in my first post, but instead of the 10 countries there in the first draft, there are now 21.

The countries will be packed much tighter, but it will still work well and look good (see my preview on page 3. the size of the countries in that image is about the same as the rest of the map.) The benefit of small countries is that once I begin developing the desert, i will be able to put a ton of countries in there and really make it the scale I am imagining it to be. It wouldn't suprise me if there ends up being around 80 countries within the desert. Deserts are big and mostly empty. that is the feel I am going for. Lots of space to travel and move around, and lots of oases to help build up your bonuses.

The graphics are looking great, but i dont know if it is a good idea to have som many territories because there has been a lot of demand for small maps, and i know it is our map and you have a vision of what it should be like, but i think you should consider none of the less. But the graphica are looking awesome.

militant wrote:The graphics are looking great, but i dont know if it is a good idea to have som many territories because there has been a lot of demand for small maps, and i know it is our map and you have a vision of what it should be like, but i think you should consider none of the less. But the graphica are looking awesome.

Just because there is a demand for small maps doesnt mean the foundry have to provide . . .

Cartographers have maps for there enjoyment and to create something they want to paly on. If lack wants to plug the demand for certain types of maps he can gladly higher someone to do it

ok guys, heres a bit more of the image.
Its my new signature banner.
The area in the picture is the entire right fertile land (but it is rotated 90 degrees so it can fit).

I will be adding a few more details in, but thats basically it.
If you turn your head to the side and try to ignore the huge Title i put on the picture, you can see what it will look like.
There still aren't any borders drawn in the desert yet, and one country (top left of the image) got completely cut off because i couldn't fit it all into the sig.

If you are wondering what the big dirty brown-ish circle in the middle is, just think of it as some kind of animal pen, with sheep or cows or something inside it.

However, varying the number of territories and bonuses of the oases would make this map more interesting. Also, I'm concerned that some players may have to deal with a signficantly inferior territory drop.